BY KATHERINE FRANKE AND MICHAEL ALTMAN-LUPU

We have a message for Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar: welcome to the blacklist.  You have joined a growing group of human rights defenders who have been denied entry to Israel and Palestine by the Israeli government because we dared to argue that Israel should comply with international human rights laws.  We also have a message for Columbia University: this is what the global reach of the Israeli Occupation looks like – it’s about denying access to the occupied Palestinian territories by foreign nationals, especially academics, students, and human rights advocates.  We should know, we were banned from entering Israel and Palestine too.

The Israeli government’s refusal to grant visas to two members of Congress—Representative Omar entirely and Representative Tlaib only on the condition that she agree in advance not to criticize Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—is just the most recent example of Israel closing its doors to advocates who believe the state of Israel should be held to the same standards of compliance with universal human rights laws as every other country.

In the spring of 2018 one of us, Katherine Franke, was denied entry into Israel at the Tel Aviv airport, along with my colleague Vince Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  I was aggressively interrogated, detained for 14 hours, and then deported with paper in hand banning me from entry into Israel indefinitely.  The border control official repeatedly screamed at me: “Admit that you’re here to promote BDS in Palestine!”  I insisted that I wasn’t seeking entry into Israel for reasons related to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights; rather I had planned to meet with two of my graduate students to discuss their dissertations, one in Haifa, the other in Ramallah, and I was one of the co-leaders of a delegation of US human rights advocates who would be meeting with colleagues in Israel and Palestine.  The trip had nothing to do with BDS. (The Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs acknowledged that they denied me entry into Israel because they believed me to be a leader in the BDS movement, which I’m not, though I have endorsed the academic boycott of Israeli state institutions.)

The other of us, Michael Altman-Lupu, is a student at Columbia Law School who has primarily focused on international human rights.  This summer I accepted a job with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.  Since its inception seven decades ago, UNRWA has strived to provide the Palestinian people with quality education and healthcare.  Working for UNRWA was going to advance my skills and advocacy—that is, until Israel blocked me.

As I prepared to travel to Jerusalem, I applied for a visa at the Israeli Consulate in New York.  Consular officers informed me that my visa would be ready in a week.  But when they saw I would be working for UNRWA, they expressed skepticism as to why I, a Jew, would want to work there.  I returned a week later to pick up my visa but was told it had been escalated for approval by the Israeli Interior Ministry.  It has been four months, and I have still not been approved for a visa by the Israeli government.   Meanwhile I have to start school again in a few weeks.

I have never before publicly expressed my views about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people or BDS.  The only reasons I can imagine for being denied entry are Israel’s views toward UNRWA and its attempts to suppress any perceived support of Palestine.  Indeed, while my visa application has been pending, Israeli and American officials appeared before the UN Security Council in May to attack UNRWA’s mandate and argue the organization has contributed to regional instability.

Israel’s blacklist includes other advocates.  Last fall, Lara Alqasem, a graduate student at the University of Florida, traveled to Israel to pursue a master’s degree at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Although she had already been issued a student visa by the Israelis, officials detained her at the airport and held her for two weeks while she appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court. The Court ruled that Alqasem could not be barred from entry, but only after she disavowed any association with or support for the boycott of Israel.  This pattern tracks a parallel effort on the part of the Israeli government to deny foreign professors and students access to Palestinian universities. Birzeit University (located outside Ramallah in the West Bank) reports a 200 percent increase in visa denials by the Israelis to foreign faculty over the past two academic years.  The president of the university concluded “Blocking our right to engage international academics is part of an ongoing effort by the Israeli occupation to marginalize Palestinian institutions of higher education. The latest escalation in visa restrictions is just one in a longstanding and systematic Israeli policy of undermining the independence and viability of Palestinian higher education institutions.”  Birzeit and two human rights groups have filed suit calling on Israel to refrain from imposing “arbitrary restrictions on the duration of stay or extension of stay of international academics.”

When the Israeli Embassy was slow-walking Michael’s visa application we reached out to the Columbia President’s office for help and they responded “Perhaps our electeds and embassies can help.”  When Professor Franke asked the administration to speak out about her being detained at the Tel Aviv airport and denied entry to Israel, she was told “it would be inappropriate for the Law School, which also houses to [sic] pro-Israel scholars and programs, to be seen as taking a position on this issue.”

Silence amounts to taking a position when members of our community are prohibited from working, studying, and collaborating with Israeli and Palestinian academics and advocates.  When the University exonerates itself from any responsibility for addressing the increasing frequency with which members of our community are punished for exercising rights to free speech, association, and movement, it aligns itself more with the illegal acts of a foreign state than with the rights and interests of members of our community.  We expect more from an academic institution that prides itself on its defense of academic freedom.

Guest blogger Katherine Franke is the Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia University and guest blogger Michael Altman-Lupu is a law student at Columbia University.